Monday, December 26, 2016

Four family
members from the Quad City community gathered the day after Xmas 2016 to evaluate
the adherence of Wise Guys Pizza and Harris Pizza to Wikipedia’s Quad City
Style Pizza standards. We ordered a half sausage and half cheese pizza from both establishments for our evening meal and rated the attributes. We developed a rubric in advance of tasting based
on the information from the article that included the following items.

One
fourth inch crust with a raised lip for the edge

Nuttiness
of the crust

Spiciness
seasoning of the sauce

Sausage
taste and texture related to fennel richness and double grind

All
toppings under cheese

Cut
into strips

Overall
impression

The
results indicated that Harris Pizza did a slightly better job of adhering to
the Quad City Style Pizza standards as outlined in the Wikipedia article. Harris Pizza received a score of 81 out of 92 and Wise Guys Pizza received a score of 75 out of 92. If 100 percent equals the perfect Quad City Style
Pizza then according to our results, Harris Pizza was 88 percent toward achieving the perfect score and Wise Guys Pizza was 81 percent. The data for each attribute are
in the table below.

Attribute

Taster #1

Taster #2

Taster #3

Taster #4

Results

Harris

Wise
Guys

Harris

Wise
Guys

Harris

Wise
Guys

Harris

Wise
Guys

1/4-inch
crust raised lip

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

8

Crust nuttiness

5

4

5

4

3

3

3

4

31

Spicy sauce

5

5

4

3

4

4

5

3

33

Double grind fennel flavored sausage

5

5

5

5

4

5

5

5

39

Cheese
on top

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

8

Cut
into strips

1

0

1

0

1

0

1

0

4

Overall impression

5

5

4

4

3

4

5

4

34

Subtotals

23

21

20

18

17

18

21

18

89

Harris Pizza total

81

Wise Guys Pizza total

75

Italicized attributes rated on a scale of one to five.
Normal font attributes yes for one point and no of zero points.

There was much debate among the tasters after tallying
the data and reviewing the results. Much
of the debate centered around one taster’s views that a Quad City Style Pizza should
not be penalized for cutting into triangles versus strips while another taster
felt that this was a critical attribute.

Other comments included that the driver of the Wise
Guys Pizza was very courteous. The Harris
Pizza came in a waxed paper bag with a twisted peak, not commonly seen. Both pizzas were hot and timely.